[Sigia-l] "Messy" design, Indian style

[Anjali Arora]

I think using the word 'chaos' to describe Indian public places & markets is
missing the point, & viewing things through western eyes. Having spent
decades in India, I can vouch for several facts:

1. American malls do appear sterile & repetitive. The Indian stores with
packed shelves & narrow aisles have a charm their own, & a unique personal
touch. The Big Bazaars do not appeal to me as they have the worst of both
worlds: an impersonal approach & a mad crush of people.

2. I think Biyani hits the nail on the head by identifying his core audience
as the maids & drivers who do the shopping for the household. Coming from
humble backgrounds themselves, they are likely to feel that they are somehow
paying for the overheads of fancy stores. The logic goes that all that
air-conditioning, wasted space in terms of wide aisles or fewer products on
a certain shelf space most certainly is built into the product's prices, &
is ultimately footed by the buyer. Hence, such stores are to be avoided.

3. The Indian middle classes are simply going to feel more at ease in a
store that replicates the busyness & life they see all around them. A store
that is pristine & quiet would intimidate a lot of such buyers. It has to
do, I believe, at least in part by the Indian sense of personal space. One
is constantly touching strangers on the street or at the airport, for
example, & not necessarily in an offensive way. It is just the way things
are done. On the contrary, the typical Americans disgust from the touch of
strangers will seem amusing & bizarre to a large number of Indians. ( I
remember going to meet relatives or friends: if you cared for them, you
would sit at an appropriate distance from them on the sofa i.e near enough
that you could touch each other with a small movement; sitting across or at
the further end of the sofa conveyed that you were not close enough.

Lastly, about an Indian designed FAcebook, I'm not sure how this sense of
space in teh physical world translates into the digital. Certainly, an
Indian FAcebook would not have such a terribly clean look!

-Anjali



On 8/18/07, Paola Kathuria <paola at limov.com> wrote:
>
> [After writing this message, I read the whole WSJ article and
> a bit more about Mr Biyani's shops. The article is likely
> referring to the "Big Bazaar" shops. I found an article which
> said that some wealthy people send their servants to shop for
> them and that clothes are presented in their up-market Pantaloon
> shops. Pics at the end. My message is a tad black and white but
> hopefully still relevant.]
>
>